On Becoming an Alchemist: A Guide for the Modern Magician | 
| Author: Catherine Maccoun
Publisher: Trumpeter
Category: Book
List Price: $21.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  9 reviews
Sales Rank: 59037
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.2
ISBN: 1590303695
Dewey Decimal Number: 133.43
EAN: 9781590303696
ASIN: 1590303695
Publication Date: February 12, 2008
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Condition: brand new; never read; very clean; no marks in book; from nonsmoking environmnet
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Product Description
Many regard alchemy as a metaphor for inner transformation. But this is only half the story. According to Catherine MacCoun, alchemy is no mere metaphor. It’s real magic. Transforming the inner world is, for the alchemist, a way to transform the outer world. Through studying the principles of alchemy, we can achieve extraordinary effects from ordinary actions by understanding how the world really works. We can perceive the hidden connections between the spiritual and the material worlds. Knowledge of these connections enables us to influence external phenomena through the powers of heart and mind alone. Yet alchemy is not, like some forms of magic, the exercise of mind over matter. It is the art of taking what already exists—whatever presents itself—and transmuting the harmful into the helpful, the useless into the valuable.On Becoming an Alchemist initiates us into these secrets, showing us how to think, perceive, and operate as an alchemist. It offers practical advice and exercises that will help the modern magician to:
● Understand and apply basic principles of alchemy● Transmute setbacks, failures, and losses into sources of magical power● Navigate one’s inner world with poise, confidence, and common sense● Intuitively show up in the right place at the right time to benefit from magical coincidences● Discover the potentials latent in any situation by awakening subtle perception
To learn more about the author Catherine MacCoun go to www.hermeticist.com.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 4 more reviews...
 Midly entertaining, perhaps July 22, 2008
Disappointing. The book contains a few clever ideas along the way, but few of those pertain to alchemy. Her method is to offer psychological descriptions of the traditional seven stages of alchemy. Beyond this, she provides little evidence that her awareness of the alchemical tradition reaches far beyond the New Age take upon the subject. I would find no fault in this, if the book did not carry the implication that she had attained a level of expertise that makes her psychological insights instructive to the rest of us. I do not, however, intuit this expertise, but only an arrogant (though perhaps well-intentioned and sincere) presumption about her own level of spiritual attainment. I could, of course, be projecting my own unconscious awareness of my own arrogance upon her. Still, I cannot shake the feeling that I have somehow been defrauded out of the cost of the book. If you find this book attractive, I recommend that you at least pick it up used. Give it a year, and the book will come dirt-cheap.
 MacCoun's Celtic Music May 14, 2008
PRECIS: First thought, best thought: OBA knocked my socks off. Come as you are alchemy. Five stars. Touch of genius. Hard to pigeonhole. Terribly wise, original, practically helpful. Really good writer and story teller. Charmed and disarmed me. Flat out original and fall down funny take on the psychology of spiritual transformation, and vice versa. Equal attention to the grit and the grace. Alchemical marriage of hermetic Christianity and Buddhism: strategic ends and skillful means. Shakespeare diva/deva. Consorts with a lot of Catholic saints and mystics. Jacob's ladder traffic heavy.
There's a Celtic saying that the best music in the world is the music of what happens. Lots of great Celtic music, then, in On Becoming An Alchemist: A Guide for the Modern Magician (OBA), a luminously wise to whimsical book on the lost inner art of Alchemy that makes the music out of what happens. OBA makes an intriguing midrash on the Great Work of inner change, the transformation of ones emotional/mental misery to, let's say, magic. Its style ranges from light-heartedly pragmatic to transcendentally hard-headed. It's got attitude, moxie, altitude, groundedness, and gravitas to go with the seriously sassy Zen on wry wit. I recommend this book whole heartedly. It knocked my paradigmatic socks off. It is hard to pigeonhole something in which the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Must be alchemy.
OBA is a `how to' alchemical cook book, measured out in equal parts of principle, how to understand, and praxis, how to apply. It does not come with hardware; you are the hardware. Alchemical apprentices in search of the Philosopher's Stone - an integral `diamond heart' with a new kind of psychospiritual metabolism -- learn how to make alchemical gold out of their base matter: passions and desire, life setbacks and frustrations, and general phenomenal lust. From one's emotional toxic waste, then, comes spiritual medicine, energy, and power. Alchemy teaches one to become a kind of living breathing human `tree' in the material and subtle realms metabolizing garbage to grace. This wholeheartedness embodies a bearable lightness of being magical style that will subtly change the way you see things in the outer world as well as what things you see.
There's more to OBA than Eastern mechanics (meditation, tantra, chakras and skillful means) meets Western metaphysics (hermetic Christianity, object relations dynamic psychology, Platonic Great Chain of Being and Aristotelian empirical reason) at the alchemical wedding. MacCoun analogically relates the transformational journey through seven traditional alchemical stages, which are functionally related to the seven human energy centers, or chakras, and their programming and processing.
Alchemy seems to favor a kind of gnosis modus operandi. That is, it displays, at least initially, a more intellectual, dispassionate, empirical, scientific curiosity and emphasis in the way it explores and tastes reality. MacCoun practiced various kinds of Buddhist meditation for many years and most likely still does; she recommends it and it must work. Using this book as a measure, she hums with an uncluttered focus and sports a mind with an astringent Occam's edge to its mettle. That is a very handy alchemical tool in a singular and unified (as in not supernaturally split) Universe of Being with multilevel platforms, elevators, modes, nodes and matrices, as well as a long and robust food chain and pecking order of unsightly hairy thought forms, lost souls, ghouls, hungry ghosts, angels, devas, demons and generally whacked out astral wildlife.
In this regard, MacCoun's riff on `Baggage Disclaim' is both comic and practical genius, and by itself worth the price of the book (as is the appendix on dreams, or `night school.'). This is MacCoun's wryly punned name for a kind of combination funhouse, flea market and dustbin of history's and humankind's abandoned emotional, mental and psychic junk as well as the junk-selling entities. And in detailing how to distinguish subtle from gross non-physical phenomena, or genuine intuition from fake astral glom and glitz pseudo-inspiration associated with the baggage disclaim plane, lazy thinking and immature human subtle senses, MacCoun provides a rare critical common sense and clarity that cuts through a couple centuries accumulation of occult mish mash and New Age channeled mush. Hermeneutical hints from Heloise, with a little scholastic adequatio from Abelard thrown in free.
She does this without taking the usual intellectual shortcut that either totally anathematizes the thing (the reality of intangible phenomena and other-than-this-realm beings) with evangelical manichaean biblical nukes or uncritically embraces it in one whole New Age swallow, feathers and all. She discriminates, sorts, weighs with reason and analogical reasonableness, keeps the baby, throws out some funky astral bathwater, and suggests some sensible rules of the road and proper etiquette for the discerning subtle alchemical traveler.
OBA shrewdly pitches its alchemical wares to embittered contemporary empiricists who have been burned by their unconscious and uncritical romance with hard scientism. They are ripe for an alchemical makeover. Their post-modern bruised souls search transcendental eHarmony for the grail of the grand unified theory of matter and spirit, or at least the Cliff notes version. That being said, if you're looking for the equivalent of a get rich quicksilver scheme or a decalogue of power points on prosperity consciousness, OBA is not your kind of magic. Google `tonglen' to find out why; it's a different kind of Buddhist take on taking. Oh yeah, and that Cross thing.
In Sum: Like those legendary Sufi honey bees, MacCoun has distilled the essence of three sacred flowers - hermetic Catholicism, Tibetan Buddhism, and Alchemy -- and produced an original divine flavor. Lots of honey substance to this book, but the sweet style says as much in its own way. If you like wry, definitely buy the book. If you like discriminating intellectual swordplay with a meaningful point (jnana Zorro embarrasses New Age buffoon) buy this book. If you're an interreligious pilgrim in the market for something new in the East meets West dharma wrestling match, buy this book. Take it out to a two muddled martini lunch, take it dancing. Daven a little.
I'm not saying OBA will save your soul but this book will most certainly help you to find your soul. For those who do this book and want more, the author has opened a virtual cafe. Slainte
Look deeper into the subject of Alchemy. May 5, 2008
The pseudo-science of Alchemy was centuries of ago viewed as a true science. However, in recent times, it is simply the stuff of legends and mythology, and by most, to call Alchemy a true science would be a joke. "On Becoming an Alchemist: A Guide for the Modern Magician" disputes this widely held viewpoint, and offers real applications of the concept, transmuting the harmful into helpful and the useless into valuable. "On Becoming An Alchemist: A Guide for the Modern Magician" will help aspiring Alchemists understand the basic principles of alchemy, navigate one's inner world with confidence and sense, discover the potential of any situation, among others. Written by an experienced alchemist in Catherine MacCoun, "On Becoming An Alchemist: A Guide for the Modern Magician" is highly recommended for metaphysical studies shelves and any who would look deeper into the subject of Alchemy.
Promises more than it delivers April 21, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book purports to teach you how to be an alchemist.But, real spiritual alchemy takes many years to perform and involves total self transformation.It has parallels of Jung's process of individuation.In contrast, this book consists of a number of self-help practices, misleadingly elevated to the level the "alchemical" processes. The author rambles, giving too many inconsequential personal and other anecdotes.There are some straightforward self-help ideas, but they are swamped with excessive verbiage.No works from the alchemical tradition are mentioned. For example,a real alchemical work like "The Chymical Wedding" has much more depth than the book in question.
Refreshing and effervescent! March 26, 2008
At the risk of making this book sound like a soft drink, my review title aptly describes how this work made me feel. I am a student of Hermetics, although my studies are really intellectual more than practical exercises at this stage in my life. I continue to learn through study of texts and symbolism. I have read too many books written over 100 years ago, and not enough that are actually new. It was a joy to read something I felt I could really, personally relate to!
I think this book will be a great reference for me - a book I will return to again and again for encouragement and grounding in my study. The way in which I came across this book and decided to purchase it struck me as being an act of magic, for reasons that probably won't make sense to anyone but me. Still, that is the case. It actually doesn't surprise me too much now that I have read the book.
As for the actual content, I think this book is more a "meta-guide" to Alchemy and Hermeticism than a cookbook or grimoire-based book. It shines light on the "why" of Hermetics and not necessarily the exact "how". For that reason it should be in anyone's collection who desires a better understanding of themselves and their path.
All in all, a very nice work and really inspiring read!
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